We Might As Well Be Strangers
by HopeCommission
Summary: AU. What if Regina had come to New York to see Emma? Emma has no memory of her past life...and things get out of hand.


Author's Note: This was inspired by this amazing graphic over on tumblr. Link:  post/46929112783 Just. Go look at it. &amp; Then, try to stop looking. I dare you.

Credit: Klorella.

* * *

Regina had found her with surprising ease. She had secretly hired someone to locate Emma and give her notice of her whereabouts. She was sitting having a glass of wine in her dark dining room when she got the call. Emma had been found. She was residing in Manhattan with their son.

Despite the knowledge, it had taken several months to gather the courage to come looking. She had been mulling over the notion for the better part of six.

Emma had gone back to something she knew. She was working as a bail bondsperson in midtown. Regina told herself she was only curious and that seeing them…their life in the city was her motivation and nothing more. She told herself a lot of things.

Regina had waited there one day, her breath catching when her eyes spotted the blonde exiting the building. Her immediate reaction was to run and get the hell back to Storybrooke before Mary Margaret and David and the rest of the town started to question her absence. However, something had compelled her to stay with her and follow, eyes searching for differences in her features and demeanor for desperate reasons she could not name.

Same jeans. Same hideous taste in leather. Same Emma.

Walking several paces behind her and lost in the throng of New York City crowds, Regina wondered, not for the first time, if this was a mistake.

The crowds thinned when she turned to walk down a side street and Regina waited a beat before following. Though why she tried to be covert, she did not know. Emma had no memory of her. She could bump right into her, meet her eye, and she would never know.

The idea of it sent a chill down her spine and caused a lump to form in her throat.

She followed Emma until she stopped near a building she had to assume was a school. Children in backpacks were exiting with their families as Emma slipped inside.

Regina combed a hand through her hair and turned to look down the tree-lined street, trying desperately to look like she belonged among the mingling parents as she took a breath.

She smoothed her dress down and waited self-consciously.

She was about to see her son.

Emma exits with Henry in tow, smiles on both their faces, no doubt sharing some joke or little detail of his life she is no longer privy to. She hates Emma for the pain she feels.

She wants to blame her for taking the only thing in her life she has to live for but deep down she knows that's not all she is feeling.

She hasn't just missed Henry.

Regina follows them home that night, feeling more than a little foolish as she watches them enter their apartment building.

She winds up at the bar down the street drinking alone and sullen.

She can't pinpoint exactly when the dreams started. Maybe a few weeks after Emma and Henry left.

Dreams that started innocently enough but almost always ended with she and the Savior wrapped in an intimate embrace, saying things to each other that would and could never happen.

That first night she had woke with a start, breathless, ashamed, and aroused.

Subsequent nights had her waking to touch herself beneath the silk of her pajama pants, Emma's name on her lips when she comes.

Regina knows it is twisted and she is fucked. To realize you desire a woman you also can't stand and who no longer remembers you even existed. Though, she supposes, the former isn't entirely true.

Perhaps that is why she came. To see Henry. To see her. To remember how much she hated her for taking him, even if she had told them to go, so she could stop fantasizing about a life she would never have.

A possibility that had existed…however remote, prior to the curse.

She sips the bourbon slowly, letting it burn her throat as it slides down.

She pays the tab, retreating back to her hotel and touches herself once she is under the sheets, her fingers inside her and with visions of the blonde in her head, though she ends the night in frustration, tears flowing and dropping onto the satin sheets.

The pain of being in Storybrooke without the two of them had left her broken. Needy. Exposed.

Regina promised herself she would check out the next morning. Told herself that prolonging her empty-handed return would only make the trip back more difficult. However, she finds herself at the concierge putting a few nights more on her credit card before she can process her reasons.

She curses herself for her weakness.

It had not been enough.

But, she had a plan.

* * *

It isn't difficult. She worms her way into the company with surprising ease when she sees the job posting. She concocts a fake resume, references, and skill set. She is offered a job as a Productivity Specialist on the spot given her commanding presence in the interview.

A few days later, she is settling into her new office on the seventh floor of the agency in midtown.

It's pathetic, really. The lengths she had gone through just to have a legitimate reason to be close to her. Despite the newfound proximity, Regina goes the whole morning without seeing her. It gives Regina enough time to think… and she begins to realize just how idiotic and senseless this whole thing is. How hopeless.

Then in the afternoon, it happens.

She hears a knock on her office door, barely having time to tell the person on the other side to come in when Emma is stepping through and Regina isn't prepared for the grip she feels on her heart at the sight.

"Hi." Emma says casually, crossing and holding out her right hand. "My name is Emma Swan. I'm one of the bail bondsmen here. Ted sent me to get you for our weekly progress meeting."

Regina reaches out a hand, clasping her hand in hers and shaking, trying to act natural. "Hi." At the blonde's quizzical look, she realizes she has been staring. "Regina." She swallows, taking her hand back. "Regina Mills."

Shit. This was too hard. To have Emma look her in the eye with no sense of recognition. A stranger. She hadn't even bothered to change her name. What did it matter?

In hindsight, that had been her opportunity to cut her losses. She should have turned and went back to Storybrooke right then.

She could have turned back then. But not now . Now, she is in too deep. She and Emma had become friends.

Regina sublets an apartment the following week and starts ignoring calls from Snow.

Despite the knowledge that it will only lead to more hurt and pain, she continues on. Continues to ignore the inner voices warning her to end this.

She couldn't. Not when she could be someone else. Someone that Emma desired to spend time with.

When they could be something other than they had always been.

They started having lunch together on a semi-regular basis and developed an ease between them.

Before long, they were sharing personal stories and inside jokes around the office.

Emma shared pictures of her son and Regina pretended as if her heart wasn't beating out of her chest when he was brought up. Regina told Emma that she recently moved from a small town in Maine. Shared her love of classical music and horses.

She tried to be as open and honest as she could, trying to assuage the guilty feelings plaguing her at her betrayal. And, it was a betrayal. Whether it would ever be discovered or not.

Emma would never forgive her for this. However, Emma would never remember their backstory. She would never know. Regina tried to pretend that that made this okay.

She knew it would come to an end…she would have to go back, make up some story about needing to transfer and then Emma would be out of her life for good. She was starting to believe she could actually go.

That was until late one night.

They had both been working over. Regina, more so, because she really had nothing else to do, than because she needed to stay. The busy work helped keep her mind off the fact that she couldn't live like this forever.

Emma had come into her dimly lit office when Regina's back was turned, bending to retrieve a file from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. Regina had felt eyes on her, face flushing when she turned to find Emma leaning back against the door. Had she just caught Emma checking her out?

Emma's face tinged red. Oh, yeah. She had.

Regina smirks at her. Emma's gaze had always drifted and lingered. Some things never change.

The blonde was fidgeting and seemed on edge. Regina stiffened.

"Regina, I…Look, I'm not sure if you….I have been wanting to ask. What I mean to say is…" She rubbed a hand over the back of her neck nervously. "Would you like to get a drink with me sometime?"

Regina had been shutting the drawer and opening the file when Emma's words washed over her, causing her to jump a little, papers flying and falling in haphazard ways onto her office floor.

What?


End file.
